The East Asian Community as Outsiders within New Zealand Literature: Foreignness and Isolation

When discussing the idea of the East Asian community as outsiders, an immediate place to begin is looking at the way in which foreignness, and the isolation which comes with that, is represented within The Luminaries and Chappy. Both Catton and Grace present their East Asian characters as facing this isolation and discrimination, with multiple examples of these characters being on the fringes of society and being othered simply for being East Asian.

Immediately, the historical backdrops against which The Luminaries and Chappy are set are foundational for the way in which these characters are presented to us. Because the “Chinese had a greater struggle to enter the country and were discriminated against by the inequity of the poll tax”[1], there was a systemic barrier for Chinese migrants to enter New Zealand in the 1860s, and this bred an automatic level of racism against the diaspora by New Zealanders. Indeed, in the recent television adaptation of The Luminaries, very early on in the first episode we are introduced to the character of Sook Yongsheng queuing up at customs, and he is met with a shout of “Hey Chinaman, you’re in the wrong queue! Are you stupid? Get to the back!”[2]. This was an addition made by Television New Zealand, but one which perfectly frames the systemic oppression Chinese migrants faced, particularly as it is followed with “Welcome to the New World”[3], implying that this racial disparity is the norm. Our first introduction to characters of Chinese ethnicity within The Luminaries is through the eyes of Walter Moody, whom Catton describes as “surprised, now, to observe a well-dressed gentleman passing his lucifers to a Chinaman, and then leaning across him to retrieve his glass.”[4] Such casualness intimacy between white settlers and Chinese migrants would not have been a normal act to witness, thus Moody is surprised to see it. Within Chappy, alongside this systemic racism which has long since prevailed within New Zealand, we are also presented with the way in which war, and the shifting of alliances brought about by war, affects the way in which the East Asian diaspora is viewed and portrayed within the novel.

Finally, when considering the way in which “boundaries of identity and place have been obfuscated”[5], the differences between East Asian diasporas became profoundly blurred within New Zealand society; so, whilst the character of Chappy Star in Grace’s Chappy does not technically face anti-Chinese racism as he himself is Japanese, the racism against the East Asian diaspora does affect him significantly, as he is the target of “thrown stones”[6] from children. As Ip and Leckie write, “the assumption of a common Asian ‘race’ can be traced to the late nineteenth century when [they] were discursively lumped together as undesirable aliens or Asiatics”[7]; this is the precise time period The Luminaries is set within, and sets the scene for the way in which East Asian racism took hold within New Zealand (and thus also gives us understanding of certain struggles Chappy Star faces within Chappy). This homogenisation of differing East Asian communities is important to point out, as it is a practice which underpins comparisons between The Luminaries and Chappy, and ultimately is key to the way in which foreignness and isolation is represented within these novels.

‘Yellow Peril’ and the perceived immorality of ‘Chinamen’

The term ‘Yellow peril’ is an extremely racist definition which has historically been used to describe those of East Asian descent, and the existential threat which they pose to the Western world. It is specifically a term rooted in racial identity, not national identity, as the blurring between East Asian nations is very much present in the way in which this term has been used historically. Ip and Leckie write how, within New Zealand, “The Chinese were the embodiment of the ‘Yellow Peril’ […] they were considered immoral, unclean and prone to infectious diseases”[8]. This is immediately a mentality which is presented to us by Catton in her introductory presentations of the East Asian characters within The Luminaries.

A recurring theme in The Luminaries is the use of opium, and that use is primarily centred around the Chinatown in Kaniere. I will discuss the presence of Chinatown in The Luminaries in more depth within Chapter Three of this dissertation; however, the presence of opium is important to touch upon, as it ties into motivatio